Send in the WHAT!
by Polgaria
Summary: A sequel to "Visual Chaos", in which Miranda exacts her revenge against her fist assistant, with unexpected consequences. Mirandy. Please, please, please Read and REVIEW. I need to know what readers are thinking! 3  Polly


"Send in the WHAT?A tale of Miranda's Revenge"

Miranda gazed off into space as she sipped at the searing latte she held delicately between steepled fingers, a naughty smirk flashing through her eyes as she finished formulating her plan of epically devious proportions.

Since the outing of her arachnophobia several weeks prior, the editor had been desperately scouting out potential routes of revenge; after all, despite Andrea's eventual act of murdering the invader, thus saving Miranda from untimely demise, the girl had teased her mercilessly- and, well- kind of hurt her feelings. If the editor was going to be honest with herself. Which rarely happened.

So rather than honestly dealing with her less than professional emotions for her first assistant, Miranda Priestly did the next best thing; she plotted. She plotted hardcore.

Oh, it had taken a couple of weeks of surreptitious testing on her part- but Miranda, dread editor in chief of Runway, was nothing if not crafty. She began with the usual suspects; Andrea had been sent out to buy a pet albino boa for the twins, and subsequently, mice to feed the snake- which had been affectionately nicknamed 'Hissy-fit' by the editor's less than perturbed assistant, who seemed not at all bothered by either reptiles or rodents. Andrea had also nicknamed the two white mice, the twins had relayed that particular evening when Miranda returned home; "Dead' and 'Gone.'

That had been annoying, Miranda recalled, taking another draught from the Starbucks cup and tapping her fingers thoughtfully along the cardboard sleeve. But, never one to back down from a challenge, the editor had persevered.

Several days later, she announced that the entire office staff was going to need to get flu shots for the coming winter season, insisting that the magazine could not risk another incident of 'viral plague' ransacking her clockwork organisation. Miranda waited almost gleefully for the girl's reaction, but when Andrea merely smiled and said she'd already gotten her shot the week prior, the editor realised- with no small amount of frustration- she needed to strike 'needles' off the list of potentials.

And on it went- Miranda introduced every possible phobia she could think of, even going so far as to arrange to have herself 'trapped' in an elevator with the young woman to test for claustrophobia (Andy had smiled, leaned up against the wall, and promptly gone to work adjusting Miranda's schedule on her blackberry).

But as it usually happens, when one is looking for inspiration, Miranda only truly found the most optimal solution when she was least expecting it.

It had been several days ago- she and Andrea had been en route to a preview for a new designer that Miranda was interested in, and the two were hurrying across a busy street towards the showroom when a small woman, dressed as a vintage clown and brandishing an unusually large bouquet of flowers leapt in front of both of them and began a tirade of advertisement for 'Flora's Florals', a shop which, as it turned out, happened to be located directly beside the designer's showroom.

Andy actually stopped walking and slid in behind the older woman as they passed the clown, strategically moving around Miranda and using her as a block as they drew nearer the woman. When the editor gave her assistant a pointed look of disapproval, the young woman offered up an obviously lame- and fabricated- excuse of being allergic to the particular type of flowers.

_Bingo. _

And so it was that Miranda, several days later, had formed an idea. A terrible, wonderful, _awful _idea. Because it just so happened that the twins had a birthday coming up, and it also happened that Miranda thought she might like a little extra help on hand for the girl's party. And finally, it occurred to the editor that it would probably be a good idea to have both of her children and all the little party guests dress up for the afternoon soiree.

As elaborate, fanciful, designer-inspired clowns.

Miranda had gleefully contacted the only man for the job, Christian Lacroix, who happened to be in town that month designing costumes for a New York production of Cirque du Soleil. In fact, that very afternoon, Miranda had an appointment with Monsieur Lacroix to preview the designs.

Miranda finished off her latte, ventured into the empty outer office, and with coat and bag draped casually over her arm, performed an elaborate lay-up towards Andy's garbage, and dunked the empty cup in the glass trash can on her way out.

Two hours later, the editor was just sitting down to dinner with her twins, where they would further discuss the details of their eleventh birthday party.

"Did you have a good day at work today, Mom?" Caroline asked around a green bean which hung tremulously from between her teeth.

"I did, sweetheart- and for God's sake, either eat that, or put it back on your plate." Miranda eyed the bean with ire, and smiled when her daughter chomped it back. "Are you excited about your party? Have all of your friends RSVP'd?"

Cassidy nodded, poking at the French beans on her plate, which she happened to despise. "Everyone can come! I'm totally stoked for this. And you said Andy is coming? And what's the surprise about, anyway. The invitations said something about a surprise 'theme.'"

The mother of two nodded. "Yes- she's coming to lend a hand with everything. With twenty-two near-teenagers running around, I thought Cara might go into a fit of apoplexy if it was just her and I dealing with you lot." Miranda realised it was likely time to tell her daughters of the plan brewing on the backburner. "And the surprise- how to tell you? How do you girls feel about playing a little joke on Andrea?"

Caroline, the soft touch, frowned, while her sister- who had a bit of a mean streak- grinned almost demonically.

"What do you mean, Mom?" Caroline asked sceptically.

Miranda pondered how best to broach the subject. "Well," she began thoughtfully, "several weeks ago, there was a spider in my office, and-

"Ew," Cassidy shrieked, "I hate spiders! _You_ hate spiders!" Caroline nodded along fervently.

"That's right," the editor nodded. "So I asked Andrea to come in and deal with it, but rather than kill it straight away, she teased me about my arachnophobia."

"What a jerk-face," Cassidy groused, "I thought Andy was cool."

Miranda made a bit of a guilty face. "To be fair, Bobbsey, I probably deserved a little teasing, and she did kill it in the end, but-"

"You want _revenge_," Caroline finished solemnly.

Miranda nodded, looking sheepish. "What do you think, girls?"

"Go for it," Cassidy offered happily, and her sister nodded along.

"What's the plan?" Caroline asked, warming up to the idea, once she realised that her mother's first assistant seemed to have it coming.

"It all has to do with the surprise, kiddo," Miranda explained. "Christian Lacroix is designing costumes for your party- for you two, and all of your guests. You see, Andrea has an aversion to clowns, and Christian is currently working on all of the costuming for Cirque du Soleil. All of you get to dress in the most beautiful costumes, and have your make-up done, and when Andrea comes to help out, she'll be inundated with twenty, plus you two, gorgeous little clowns, running around like hell on wheels."

Cassidy looked at her mother, agog with respect for the deviousness of her mind. "You. Are. Too. _Cool_."

"I'm glad you approve, sweetheart. Caro?" She turned her attention to the other girl. "What do you think, luvy?"

Caroline smiled slowly- after all, she was spawn of Miranda Priestly, near enough to Satan to spit on his hooves. And besides that, nobody messed with her mother, not even Andy. "Oh yeah. Ditto."

Miranda grinned. "It's on."

Miranda stood anxiously in the foyer of the townhouse, looking down at her own iridescent, decidedly flattering harlequin costume, wondering if perhaps she hadn't gone a _bit_ overboard with the retaliation; but then, she was Miranda fucking Priestly after all, and the Frost Bitch from Polar Hell didn't do anything by halves.

All of the guests had arrived promptly, been slipped into their costumes, and were now undergoing the rest of their transformations at the hands of several professional make-up artists from the Cirque production, who had been more than happy to come to the fashion maven's house.

Suddenly, Miranda heard the tale-tale clack of her assistant's shoes on the front steps, and smiling serenely, opened the door.

Andy didn't make a sound as she stood there gaping at her boss, who against all reason, seemed to be standing in the doorway, dressed as a clown- a dead sexy one- but a clown, nevertheless.

"Hel- shi- I mean, uh…Miranda?" Andrea's voice was verging on achieving echo-location tones.

"Good afternoon, Andrea," the older woman said, her voice light. "Thank you for coming. The girl's friends are all here, so why don't you come in?"

"You uh- you didn't mention it was a costume party," Andy whispered, pulling fretfully at the scarf around her neck, which suddenly felt a lot more like a noose. "Are all the kids dressed up?"

"Oh yes," Miranda confirmed, stepping aside to allow the young woman entry. "I think you'll be quite impressed with their outfits."

Andy nodded, and quite nearly tripping over the stair into the townhouse, continued to pull at the silk around her neck, until with a panicked flourish, it came free.

"Are you alright, Andrea?" the older woman queried, her voice lilting uncharacteristically as the two exited the foyer and started walking down the hallway towards the large living room Andy knew existed beyond the study.

"I'm _great_," the girl emoted cheerfully- though at this point, 'cheerful' sounded a lot more like 'hysterical'. "I can't wait to see the girls. What are they dressed up as?"

Miranda offered a secretive smile. "Oh- you'll see," she said, moving towards a door in the strangely empty living room, and poking her head around the corner. "Cara- send in the clowns!"

Andy gasped, and took several steps backwards. "T-the what?"

"Hmm?" Miranda asked innocently, looking over her shoulder at the young woman who seemed to be using all of her willpower not to burn rubber out of the townhouse.

"Miranda," Andy squeaked pleadingly. "Send in the _what?" _

But Miranda didn't have time to answer her assistant, as nearly two dozen completely adorable clowns flooded the living room.

"Oh _God_," the young woman moaned under her breath, steadying herself against a bookshelf.

Two of the little monsters approached her, and they might as well have been covered in toxic waste or brandishing fully functioning light sabres, because Andy held up her hands and actually muttered a fevered 'stay back' when the girls got too close.

"Hiya, Andy," one of them said, her painted on mouth growing even wider when she smiled.

"Cass?" the young woman choked, still backing slowly away, breathing erratically.

"Yup," the girl offered, blinking her eyes, which sat in the middle of sparkly, diamond-shaped make-up. "Like our costumes?"

"Uh- they're, uh," Andy covered her mouth and turned a strange shade of puce, "great. They're _really great_. I'm just gonna'- be…not here…for a second…" And she bolted in the general direction of the first floor powder room.

"Where did Andrea run off to?" Miranda asked, approaching her girls, who were starting to look a little guilty.

"I have a feeling," Caroline began carefully, "that we might have gone too far on this one, Mom."

Miranda blinked, and looked to Cassidy for further explanation. "What Caro means, Mom, is that we think Andy just ran off to the bathroom because she was about to _puke_."

The editor whinged a little, and offered an apologetic smile to her twins. "I'll take care of her, girls. Why don't you go have fun with your friends, and you're moronic mother will go find Andy." She took identically painted faces in each of her hands gently. "Neither of you are to feel badly about this. Besides, you have no time to waste, what with all the presents sitting over there which need opening."

Cassidy smiled, and wrapped an arm around her sister, who sniffled a little. "C'mon Caro- Mom's right. This _is_ all her fault. Let's go see what we got for our birthday."

Caroline nodded, her eyes brightening, and the two scrambled off towards the veritable mountain of presents piled beside the lounge.

Sighing heavily, Miranda decided some serious damage control was in order- and on a whim of intuition, she detoured into the room where all of the makeup had been done and grabbed one of the cases from a nearby table.

The editor knocked on the bathroom door, thankfully not hearing any sounds of the purported retching. "Andrea?"

"Justa' sec," the young woman said shakily, splashing water on her face, which only grew redder due to her insane level of embarrassment.

"I'm coming in," Miranda warned, and opened the door to find her assistant leaning heavy against the marble-topped vanity, looking quite seriously as though she were about to take a header into the sink.

"I suppose I deserved this," Andrea muttered, gazing at her shaking hands and blowing her sweaty bangs off her forehead.

"Yes and no," Miranda sighed, sliding a soothing hand over the young woman's back. "The girls were right- I might have overdone it."

"You think?" Andy accused, her voice wobbling. "_You_ only had one spider in your office. There are like, a _zillion_ clowns in your living room right now. _You_ a dressed as a freakin' clown, for Christ's sake."

Miranda smiled, and bit her lip. "This is true," she admitted, patting the young woman on the shoulder. "But I think I have something that will help."

"Oh yeah?" Andy groused. "You have some valium hidden somewhere in that costume of your's?"

The older woman snickered, but quickly regained control. "Hop up on the counter," Miranda said softly. Andy frowned curiously, but did as she was told. "I'm going to put some make-up on you," the editor explained. "To see if we can conquer this fear of yours."

"Not a good call," Andy protested weakly, though she made no move to escape as Miranda approached with a stick of silver eye-liner. "Besides," she argued. "You didn't seem so into conquering _you're_ fear that day with the spider."

"That's different," the older woman smiled, as she moved between her assistant's legs, gently cupped the girl's face with her left hand, and began drawing on Andy's soft skin. "Spiders are disgusting and terrifying and are not to be overcome. My living room is awash with twenty-two little girls _dressed_ as clowns. They're nothing to be afraid of."

"Double-standard," Andy quipped, finding herself hard-pressed to make much of a fuss about anything with Miranda touching her so sweetly; standing so close.

"Perhaps," the older woman acquiesced, taking a brush between her agile fingers and applying layers of colourful shadow around Andy's large eyes. "At any rate- I am sorry. I didn't think you'd react…quite so viscerally."

"I didn't actually throw up," Andy said indignantly, closing her eyes so Miranda could apply large, glittering false eyelashes.

Miranda chuckled warmly. "Near enough, from what I heard," she said, carefully gluing the falsies on. "Do you accept my apology?"

"Is it important that I do?" Andy answered with a question, her heart fluttering a little at how suddenly the older woman had become vulnerable.

"Yes," Miranda said simply, peeling a pair of elaborately jewelled stickers from a sheet and applying them to the young woman's blushing cheeks.

"Yes," Andrea echoed softly, leaning into the editor's touch. "I accept your apology." She opened her eyes, and the older woman's face was inches from her own. Their breath mingled.

"Lipstick," Miranda said suddenly, and reached for the tube on the counter. Andy smiled and the older woman _tsked_ at her. "Stop moving, or I'm going to end up drawing all over your face."

"Quit treating me like a two year old," the girl complained.

"I'm not."

"You totally are."

Miranda grinned, leaning in close. "Would I do _this_ to a two year old?"

"What?" Andy whispered. Her heart was thundering madly, and the only thing she could see were Miranda's huge, blue eyes, gazing warmly into her own.

"I'm going to kiss you," the older woman clarified softly.

"Oh good."


End file.
